The Rialto

2004

He wasn't Irish. That was the main thing. He was Austrian, from Amstetten, a town Gina had never heard of. He came to them highly touted, a profile-raising catch for the school who could now boast a native-speaking German teacher alongside their French one.

Solange, however, was out on maternity leave that autumn. Had she been there, they would have -- with their usual anti-flair for tact -- assigned her to his orientation. Gina, who had some rudimentary German, was Brother Shield's solution to the problem.

'Just till he settles in,' he said. 'Show him the sights, take him for a jar, you know yourself...No better woman.'

He squatted behind his desk, an obscene and sensual friar from some wages of sin painting. Twenty years as principal was written upon his skin like pox-craters. Yet he looked like an impostor in plain clothes, vaguely contemptible. The soutane, at least, used to mark him out him among men...

'What's his name?'

'Maximillian Wirth.' He declaimed, a born ham. 'I never cared for the sound of the German...'

'I haven't spoken it in years.'

'Sure it's like riding a bike.' He handed her a foolscap page of details. 'It'll come back to you...'

*

She took the initiative and phoned him that evening. His American-inflected English was perfect. He praised the enunciation of her mortified

Gruss Gott

, saying she spoke very well.

'Well, you're kind for saying so, but...'

Her phone voice was painful to her ears.

At The Third Stroke

, Mike used to call it. He'd always had a sense of humour...

She arranged to meet him in the school lobby at ten the following morning. He said he looked forward to it...

No better woman

...

She hung up and said, '

Fuck

you, Shield...'

'Fuck who?'

Mike came in from the dining room and left his tray by the sink.

'Ah, just work. They expect you to drop everything...What's the matter? Are you all right?'

'Just a bit lightheaded...'

He puffed, holding on to the back of a chair.

'Sit down...you should have called me, love...'

'

Ná bac leis

...I might have an early night.'

'Of course...Take it handy going up the stairs...'

'They don't deserve you and neither do I.'

His hand was cold upon her cheek as he passed her on the way to the hall door.

*

He was waiting for her in the secretary's office when she arrived the next morning.

'Maximill...'

'Max...please.'

They shook hands.

'Sorry to keep you waiting...'

'Patricia has been very kind...'

Patricia giggled like the nun she ought to have become and returned to her paper jam.

'Thanks a million, Trish...So, Max, I think Brother Shield is waiting to see us...?'

He looked nothing like his accent had suggested. A bullet-shaped frame in a blue double-breasted suit, strawberry-blonde and ruddy about grey eyes beginning to succumb to bloatedness. He looked like a farmer. She knew what

they

looked like...

He tapped the hand-rail as they mounted the stairs, examining his surroundings as a new proprietor might.

'The first day,' she said. 'It's never as bad as you picture it.'

'I'm just happy to start.'

'Here we are...'

She knocked at Shield's door and they were summoned.

'

Gooten maargan, gooten maargan

...' He grabbed Max by the hand. 'Well...is her nibs here taking good care of you, eh?'

'Everyone is very kind...'

Max hit exactly the right pitch of deference and familiarity. Shield disliked lickspittles yet cared even less for freshness. It was a subtle balancing act; one misstep and he'd make your life a living hell...

'Sorry about that,' she said, once they were outside. 'He's not that bad really. Just a busybody. Set in his ways...'

'It was like you weren't even there.'

'You get used to it...'

She brought him to the staff-room for introductions. As she'd anticipated, Connie Gault was all over him like a heat-rash.

Oh, Vienna is such a

beautiful

city, so

cultivated...

She was looking to cheat on Pat again. Bored out of her skull...

Max was attentive to her, if hinky, but he marshalled his discomfort like an adept. Gina watched him with a professional eye before stepping in to commandeer him.

'I think you've met everyone.' She lowered her voice. 'I'm gasping for a cigarette.'

'I didn't think it was allowed,' he said.

'My office...'

He loosened up once they were out in the corridor.

'Gina is Italian?'

'Hardly...Short for Regina. I was born just after the Marian Year. My mother had to be different...'

Now he knows how old you are, brilliant

...

'I remember this.' He smiled. 'Many Marias...'

'It used to drive the nuns at school spare trying to keep track of them all. This is us...'

She apologized for an imaginary mess and steered him away from her desk to the armchairs of her one-to-one corner.

'Just open the window behind you...here, have one of mine.'

'Rothmans...' He read from his cigarette. 'These are Irish?'

'English. Bad cess.'

'Ah, Pall Mall...we have these at home.'

She caught him looking at her rings and checked out his hands. Thick, coarse fingers, more like a labourer's than a teacher's. No rings of his own...

'You are the school counsellor, Gina?'

'Yes, I am, yes. Careers, pastoral care...I teach some classes as well. Junior Cert Business Studies...'

He waited for her to finish but her mind had gone blank. There was something unnerving about the singular quality of his attention. She tipped her ash and missed the ashtray by some distance.

'Balls...sorry. Let me...'

They both went for the smut at the same time but he got there first. She snatched her hand away before they touched.

*

She looked up from taking off her make-up and said, 'Did you ever hear of Amstetten?'

Mike, who was in bed, reading a jockey's autobiography, shook his head in the mirror. His face was stern, his glasses low upon his nose.

'What is it?' he said, finally.

'Town in Austria. Max is from there.'

'Who?'

'The German teacher? Have you been listening to a word?'

'Max...Like that German actor.'

'What?'

'The actor, Shell, Snell, I don't know...'

'He's Austrian...'

She climbed in next to him and lay on her side. He looked so frail from that angle.

I could have lost you

, she thought. Her stomach tightened as she touched his chest beneath the covers.

We're so lucky

...

Remission

was such a beautiful word...

'Hi,' he said.

'Hi. Good book?'

'Ah...You know.'

He was all bones underneath his pyjamas. He felt stronger than he had in a long time, though, which heartened her. Four years remission. One more and he would be clear, just in time for both of their fiftieths. He had fought so hard. They both had...

He leaned down and kissed her on the forehead.

'Tired?' he said.

She nodded.

'We'll get our heads down.'

'Okay love. Goodnight.'

'Goodnight...'

He fell asleep before she did and she lay awake, listening to his breathing. It was a hangover from the worst nights of his illness when she had feared that every breath he drew could be his last.

He won't die alone. I'll be here for him

...

She had borne her exhaustion without complaint. Who was she to complain? It wasn't about her. It was about being there for him. That was all that mattered...

She turned on to her side and drew up her knees.

Shell, Snell...what was that actor's name?

They had gone to the cinema a lot back when they were dating. The Rialto in Limerick. So long ago...Smoke trapped in the beam of the projector. His arm around her shoulders, gradually drawing her closer to him. All around them, couples doing the same. Sometimes she opened her eyes and watched them, ashamed of herself but unable to look away.

One night she had watched a drunk nurse masturbating her Garda boyfriend in the row behind them. Slow and steady, her hand swallowed up by the open fly...Shameless. The dirty bitch...

Dirty bitch

...

She shivered, mouthing the words on the edge of sleep...When she drifted off again, she saw the scene clearly. But now it was her in the row behind, her whole body raw like a rubbed bruise, like it was when the passion was good and nothing else mattered. Gnawed lips, aching tongues, jaws dripping with their mixed spit...He alternated a hand between her unbuttoned breasts and her crotch, mauling her through her jeans.

He wants to put himself inside me. I want him to. Jesus, look how hard he is. Look how hard I've made him

...

It was uncanny, unlike anything she'd ever touched. Inert as bone yet brutally vital. He was smiling. She could feel the shape of it upon her lips...

You've always made me smile.

Once upon a time, love...I miss you.

But we have our whole lives ahead of us...

She looked at him.

Not Mike

...

Her eyes opened upon the dark...He was a formless mass next to her, snoring faintly.

She got up and crept to the bathroom where she peed and drank a beaker of water, trembling in front of the mirror. When she shut her eyes, she could see it again -- the balcony tiers, the darkness livid with smoke, the pleasure upon Max's face in the flicker of the projector...

You're disgusting. You're beyond disgusting

.

She spat at her reflection.

*

She was cool with Max the next day. He sought her out at the morning tea-break and sat there mutely while she ignored him and continued talking to Connie. If he was put out, he didn't show it. His calmness unsettled her.

She took the sense of unease with her to Second Year Business Studies. She set them a test and sat on the classroom window-sill, staring out at the prefabs and the Primary schoolyard beyond. Bull de Stafford was in the room next door with an Honours English class. She could hear his self-satisfied monotone, an occasional salacious laugh from his disciples in response to one of his allusions. Every poem they discussed he brought back round to the pleasures of the flesh. It was his pet subject.

Her breath fogged the glass. She wiped it clear and watched two dogs, an Afghan Hound and an Alsatian, humping in the schoolyard. A brother ran out a moment later, ringing a bell to scatter them. Brother Crowne. When had he come back? He'd been away. Another celibacy-related breakdown explained away as a leave of absence.

Vocational issues

. It covered a multitude.

One-track minds

...It was at the root of all male reasoning. But it was meaningless without the kind of love she had been blessed to find. The sex always came to an end at some point but love persisted...

Because even before he got sick it was

...

'Boyle, are you eating something?'

'Miss, no miss.'

The inside of his mouth was black with liquorice. Virulent acne, even on his scalp.

'Brother Shield's office. Now.'

'Miss?'

'

Now

...'

Her raised voice was like a gunshot. She was more startled than they were.

*

Connie pre-empted her and arranged a night out for Max. A trad session in Gene Kelly's. She couldn't say no. Mike had agreed to come with her and she knew he would get tired quickly. It would give her an excuse to leave early...

Max smoked King Edwards and drank Scotch. Seemed well able to put it away...He spent most of the evening out in the smoking area talking to, or being talked at by, Connie, who was without Pat. The scoop of that neckline didn't do her any favours. Unless he had a melanoma fetish. What was she going to do anyway? A woman of forty-five, prick-teasing like a sixteen-year-old...

She took Mike's hand beneath the table. Cold. He'd always had poor circulation...

'What do you think of the music?' she said.

'That diddle-eyedle shit. It's relentless...My headache has a headache.'

'Remember the céilis in The Motorway?'

'I remember carrying you home from a few.'

'You have a selective memory...'

He couldn't think of a comeback. Finally, he said, 'It's my round, isn't it?'

'I'll go...'

The order was large and complex. Max accompanied her to the bar over her protestations.

'Honestly, I'm fine, I can manage.'

'Please.'

She relented, impressed by his persistence in spite of herself. She couldn't abide a lack of will in a man...

'The music is interesting,' he said.

'That's one way of putting it.'

'You don't like it?'

'No, I do. It's just a little repetitive, is all.'

'Yet so much variety within it...'

A silence developed, becoming fraught as the drinks multiplied upon their trays. He seemed constantly upon the point of saying something but never followed through. Not, it seemed, from temerity, but from a sense of prudence she had last seen in a generation of men long since dead.

He's not Irish

...

'You're not married?'

It was out there before she realized what she was saying.

'No.'

She reached for a glass of beer shandy and fumbled it.

'Shoot...sorry, you wouldn't top that up, would you please?'

The barman, who had already had enough of them, sullenly did as he was asked.

'It's funny.' He took out his wallet. 'Connie asked me the same question.'

'No, put that away.'

'Please, I insist.'

'We're in a round...'

She tried to explain how it was a breach of pub etiquette but it sounded childish, increasingly incoherent.

'Ah.' He nodded. 'You see how much you teach me.

This

...is for Mike?'

He picked up the glass of shandy with two fingers.

'Yes...'

How fucking dare you

...

Her fury burnt itself out, leaving despair in its wake. She held on to Mike's arm with a defiance that came to seem pathetic. Max and Connie were laughing. Her withered cleavage was as wide open as his body language. The next act was inevitable. She'd seen how fast the bitch worked. And he was a dog, like all men...

'Will we make tracks?' she said.

'Sure you can come back if you like,' said Mike.

'Ah no. I've a splitting headache. Mocking is catching...'

She smelled the cigars as soon as they were in the car. Her clothes, her hair, her pores...By the time they arrived home, and in spite of her attempt to baffle it with J'Adore, it appeared to have become stronger.

'I'll be up in a minute,' she said.

He gestured weakly, his footfalls barely audible upon the staircase.

She went to the kitchen and plugged out plugs; wiped down surfaces that were already clean. The cigar stench seemed to be perceptible, a miasma hovering about the outline of her reflection in the window above the sink. The same colour as the dirty water she wrung from the J-cloth...

I'm so tired...You have no right to complain

...

The stillness of the kitchen admonished her. She wanted to scream it to pieces and cut herself to ribbons on the shards...

*

Pat Gault, like all humour vacuums, thought he was hilarious. His comedy foreigner routines conformed to the most witless of stereotyping.

Ve have vays of making you tock

.

His companions at the canteen table laughed politely then went quiet as Max entered.

'Him and them accents.' Connie stole another one of Gina's crisps. 'Want to cop himself on.'

Gina watched her closely, not quite sure what she was looking for. Connie used to be a hoor of a poker player. Leave you broke and in a pool of blood.

Max waved to them as he sat down at Pat's table.

'Look at this...' Connie nodded. 'Look at the insincerity. And he slagging him off minute ago.'

'You had a good chat anyway...' said Gina.

'Ah, he's nice. A bit touched, I reckon. Harmless...And spoke

highly

of you.'

'Fuck off.'

'I'm serious. Your German. All this. How

bright

you are...'

Briege Ossery came over and sat down, just in time.

'Does he play tennis at all?' she said. 'For the Inter-Firms...'

'Mentioned soccer,' said Connie. 'Some trial he did for something...As soon as they mention sports, I go off glazed...'

Briege smiled at Gina.

Ox-Bow

. A big brawny elbow of a girl, long past the point of coming clean with herself. She discharged her frustration in sports. Used to sweat buckets on the tennis court...

'It was great to see Mike out,' she said. 'He looks so

well!

'

What was the word Connie had used?

Glazed

...Four years of nothing but positivity was like a diet of icing sugar. Gina had long since gone hyperglycaemic.

They didn't do anything. Connie's not interested

.

The shark had a few tells after all...

*

The wardrobe started in on her dust allergy the minute she opened its doors.

Hello 1999

...

Oh

God,

those stripes

...

She took out a cream blouse she had never worn. Pure yellow around the cuffs and collar. The price tag was still there as well.

Jade

...It had closed down the year before. They had got it in especially for her.

I have nothing to wear

...

Mike used to laugh when she said it but now, for the first time, she realized it was actually true. There wasn't even anything she could salvage.

She filled three bin-bags and put them in the boot. She could drop them off at the Vincent de Paul in the morning...

The next day was Saturday. She brought Mike his breakfast and his salad of pills at eight.

'I might head into Limerick today,' she said. 'Do you feel up to it?'

'What's in Limerick?'

'Just for the spin. Have a look around the shops.'

'Off with you. I'll be grand.'

'Are you sure?'

'You must be sick of the sight of me.'

'Because you're such an awful sight.'

She leaned forward to kiss him.

'Careful, mind the...'

'Shit! Sorry, sorry...I'll get a cloth...'

He'd caught the glass before its contents had spilled entirely.

'Ah Jesus, it's all over the

quilt

...'

He sounded as querulous as her mother had been at the end.

That beef is awful dry

...Whatever the opposite of stoic is...

His strops never lasted long. It had become a joke by the time she returned.

'I'll probably get lost in the duvet cover when I change it,' he said.

'Come on, we'll do it now...'

'Go on or that. You probably want to get ready.'

'I was going to have a shower...'

He was up and dressed by the time she was ready to leave. There was racing on the TV.

'Are you okay for...?' he said.

'I have the card.'

'Oh...' He held out a fifty. 'For a bit to eat.'

'Go way or that...'

But she took it anyway, failing, for once, to disregard the insult.

Humour him

, the oncologist had told her.

Help him to maintain a little dignity. Stick to old arrangements, old routines as much as possible

...

Pocket money for a good girl

...

She folded the note and put it in the back pocket of her jeans.

'I won't be long. Don't forget your...'

'...tablets before lunch.' He made a face as he finished the sentence for her, then went grave when he saw her expression. 'I'm only messing with you, love.'

'I didn't say anything.'

'Is it your...?'

'Don't you

dare

say it...'

'All right, all right, I'm sorry. I'm sorry love, it's just you seem a bit...'

'It's okay...' She kissed him on the forehead.

'We haven't had one of them in a while...' His eyebrows were raised as if in anticipation of more domestic strife. 'Are you sure you're okay?'

'I'm turning into Mammy.'

'No fear. Go on, enjoy yourself...'

*

A low winter sun hung above the roundabout as she hit the bypass. The black of the steering wheel set off the carmine of her nails.

Maybe a top in those colours

...

shoes to go with it

...

I'll need boots for the winter. And a coat

...